Mauritius, from Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns
Anna Atkins
British, 1799–1871

Details
Title
Mauritius, from Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns
Artist/Maker
Anna Atkins (British, 1799–1871)
Date
1851–1854
Medium
Cyanotype
Dimensions
Image: 10 1/8 × 7 15/16 inches (25.7 cm × 20.2 cm) Paper: 14 5/8 × 9 1/2 inches (37.1 cm × 24.1 cm) Support/Overall: 20 × 16 inches (50.8 cm × 40.6 cm)
Credit
Gift in honor of Edward Anthony Hill
Accession #
2019.1
On View
Currently not on view
The earliest known woman photographer and the first person to make a photo book, Anna Atkins was a pivotal figure of photography and botany in Britain. During the 1840s and 1850s, she produced several extensive series of “photographical impressions” (photograms) using the cyanotype process, a cameraless process in which objects are placed onto a sensitized sheet of paper and exposed to light. The unexposed areas under the object remain white while the areas hit by the light turn a distinct Prussian blue. Delicate and precise, Atkins’s photograms were meant to function primarily as scientific records categorizing the natural world and, in this case, the global reach of the British empire (Mauritius was a colony at the time).
Browse Related Artwork

Nellie Mae Rowe

Paula Chamlee

Lucinda Bunnen

Laura Gilpin

Hella Jongerius

Graciela Iturbide

Mary Ellen Mark

Iris van Herpen

William Mason Brown

Julia Woodman

Mary Ellen Mark